Ba Be Lake may disappear after several decades

The washing of untreated ore is discharged directly into rivers and streams causing water pollution, leading experts to warn Ba Be Lake may disappear in a few dozen years.

Yesterday afternoon, the Ba Be Lover Association organized a seminar to discuss the risk of pollution, sedimentation and possible disappearance of this lake. People in the Ba Be Lake area have sent hundreds of petitions asking for help since 2008, a mineral company has conducted iron ore mining, ore washing water poured straight into rivers, affecting people's lives. people.

Modern machines participate in mining ore, waste flows to Ba Be Lake. Photo: Do Doan Hoang.

Before this situation, the survey team included Duong Thuan poet - Ba Be Lovers club and Professor Pham Vinh Cu, Professor Chu Hao and Professor Dang Hung Vo who came to the locality to study the reality. events. " After researching and collecting the rescue records, the data showed that Ba Be Lake is dying ," said poet Duong Thuan.

Mr. Thuan added, according to the delegation's observation, the mines that exploited ore blocked the stream and sucked the water up to wash the ore so that people lacked irrigation water for crops. Ore washing water then poured directly into rivers and streams leading to Ba Be Lake. When it rains, the water rolls along both waste and sandy soil due to the excavation of ore flowing into the lake, making rice unable to grow and productivity declining.

Not only that, the daily transportation of ore with the density of many large trucks passing through has repeatedly broken common water pipes for people, causing lack of drinking water.

Professor Chu Hao, former Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Environment, said that if we continue to cut trees and exploit them today, only a few decades will no longer have Ba Be Lake. 'I returned to Ba Be Lake with feelings of sadness that I had never seen before. If we continue to cut trees, indiscriminate exploitation like today, only a few dozen years will no longer have this precious gem, ' Hao said.

Professor Dang Hung Vo, former Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment commented: " If we go to the place at this time, just need a good person, it will be painful. If you want to be rich, you have to exchange It is natural, but to know what to exchange for something, no one takes the most valuable thing to exchange and here is a very stupid trade-off . "

According to Prof. Dang Hung Vo, the exploitation of natural resources here is losing the ethnic cultural identity of this region. ' If you want to do the economy, Bac Kan can do other things, like tourism or forest products, rather than transforming itself despite environmental damage .'

"Bac Kan accepts to grow by selling natural resources today, which means that we are eating the environment. We trade in the natural things that give people to get some dong, their children and grandchildren. I will have to pay a thousand times in the future, pay much more hard and hard , 'he added.

The Ba Be Lovers Association is preparing documents to submit to the Prime Minister, suggesting measures to prevent the current exploitation situation.

Ba Be National Park has a total area of ​​10,048 ha in Ba Be District, Bac Kan Province. The Ba Be National Park hydrological system consists of 4 main rivers and streams connected to Ba Be Lake. In 1995, the world freshwater lake conference held in the US recognized Ba Be Lake as one of the 20 special freshwater lakes of the world to be protected . In 2004, Ba Be National Park was recognized as an ASEAN Heritage Garden .